Making the move to Rochester
drafting from booster drafting
in the age of Mirrodin is a
tricky thing. According to the
experts, there are three
profound truths regarding
Rochester drafting. First,
Rochester drafting is meant to
produce decks that are more
powerful overall than those
produced from booster drafts.
Second, Rochester drafting is
considered the most
skill-intensive form of limited
play. Finally, Rochester
drafting allows and at the same
time requires a high level of
cooperation between drafters at
the table. In my experience, I
have had reason to doubt every
one of these truths.
Thanks to the fine people at
Wizards of the Coast and their
crack team of computer
programmers, Mirrodin finally
became available for Magic
Online about a month ago. This
was very important for me
because while it’s easy enough
to get a “3D” (some people
prefer the terminology choice of
“real life”) Mirrodin booster
draft going, not that many
players in my vicinity likes to
Rochester draft. Preparing for
Pro Tour Amsterdam requires lots
of practice, and I am truly
thankful that Mirrodin has
finally arrived on Magic Online
regardless of the lengthy delay.
Along with a pair of recent top
eight Rochester drafts at the
end of two recent Mirrodin
sealed deck PTQs (I won one of
these top eights, making
Amsterdam my fifth pro tour
event), I have played in a
Mirrodin Rochester draft almost
every day online since the first
of December. Nothing about my
record or rating makes me an
expert in this format, but I
continue to learn from the best.
Here are some things I’ve
learned.
The second Profound Truth about
Rochester draft is certainly a
subjective issue. We don’t need
to argue about the relative
skill needed to Rochester draft
or booster draft Mirrodin
successfully. No matter which
side you fall on this argument,
don’t kid yourself, both draft
formats require a lot of skill.
I’ve found that the things that
you have to think about when
going from booster draft to
Rochester draft with three packs
of Mirrodin have a lot more to
do with Profound Truths numbers
one and three.
First, a lot of players have
found themselves scratching
their heads after a Mirrodin
Rochester draft wondering about
the first Profound Truth of
Rochester drafting. Often, my
Mirrodin Rochester deck is not
as powerful as my Mirrodin
booster draft decks. Why is
that? It’s a hard question, but
I think one reason is all about
the importance of color. In
Mirrodin booster draft, grabbing
a colored card may be the last
thing you want to do with your
first pick. You’re looking for
Loxodon Warhammer, Bonesplitter,
or some other high quality
Equipment. These are obviously
fine first picks in Rochester
draft too, but alas, old habits
die hard, and one habit, in
Rochester drafting, is to select
a color right away and stick to
it. In booster draft, you are
working hard to stay flexible.
If you do go strongly into a
color in the first booster pack,
you certainly try not to fall
into a second color right away.
In Rochester draft, whether or
not you grab a color right away,
the players on either side of
you probably are, and their
color decisions strongly affect
your color decisions. It’s kind
of strange that color is such an
important consideration in
Mirrodin. Early in Mirrodin
drafting orthodoxy, the idea was
that because of the large number
of colorless cards (colorless at
least in respect to their
casting cost) you could easily
draft three color decks and lean
on the existence of colored mana
producing Myr and Talismans to
help you achieve the colored
mana that you would need for the
relatively small number of cards
in your deck that actually
needed colored mana. A few
months later, experience has
proven that the best decks will
be limited to two colors. A very
talented teammate here in Texas
that will make Amsterdam his
first pro tour event says that
the last thing he wants to do
with a pick in the first pack of
a booster draft is attach
himself strongly to a color. He
is all about making the most of
the opportunity of opening a
powerful card in the second or
third pack. Because he doesn’t
get married to a color any
sooner than he absolutely has
to, he has the ability to add a
very powerful first pick in the
last booster pack without being
as likely to stray into a third
color. The problems of colored
mana are really the same in
Mirrodin Rochester draft decks
as in any other format. The
problem is simple, if you don’t
get the colored mana you need
for your deck, you will most
likely lose. The fact that you
have less cards in your deck
that need colored mana is not a
good enough reason to play three
colors. So why does your
Rochester draft lead its players
so much more quickly to locking
into colors than booster draft?
The issue may be secrecy. Expert
booster drafting is about
sending signals with the cards
that you leave in the booster as
you pass it to the player behind
you. Let’s face it, signals are
harder to send and to understand
in the early choices when you
play with a set as full of
colorless cards as Mirrodin. If
you open a pack, take a great
first pick and ship fourteen
cards that includes Spikeshot
Goblin, all three uncommons and
the rare, the player next to you
MIGHT figure out that you took a
Bonesplitter, but then again he
might not. I suppose you have
sent a strong enough signal that
you are not red, but we’re still
talking about a different kind
of draft signal than that
possible in previous sets. In
Rochester draft, your first pick
of a Bonesplitter is also less
useful as a signal to your
fellow drafters.
Profound Truth about Rochester
drafting instructs us that
cooperation is incredibly
important. I won’t argue with
this in the ideal sense. In a
good article recently, Ken
Krouner reminded us that when a
couple of players fail to
cooperate during a Rochester
draft, the result can be one
side of the table ending up with
much better, more streamlined
decks with better synergy than
the decks on the side of the
table with bad color
cooperation. On the other hand,
some people think the first
colored card you draft locks you
into that color throughout the
draft regardless of how many
packs have been opened. If your
first colored cards are top
picks like Spikeshot Goblin or
Shatter, then it’s probably fair
to say you are anchoring
yourself in red. Same goes for
blue if your first couple of
picks include Somber Hoverguard
and Neurok Spy. On the other
hand, if your first colored card
is a late pick Battlegrowth or
Nim Lasher, I do not believe
that you should be considered to
have “locked into” either green
or black. The real problem with
cooperation is NOT when the
player to your right takes a
colored card and then you draft
a card of the same color,
although this is certainly far
from optimal. The real problem
comes when you draft a colored
card that is not likely to be
included in your deck when the
player next to you who would
draft next wants that card. This
is hate-drafting, and the
experts are pretty much in
agreement that you shouldn’t do
it. Cooperation is definitely
one area where Rochester
drafting clearly requires more
skill than booster drafting.
However, if you don’t know how
to cooperate with colors in a
booster draft, your lack of
skill may remain a secret to a
certain degree. In Rochester
draft, all of your decisions are
made in full view of the other
seven drafters.
I believe that unless
cooperation is good in your
Rochester draft, the decks
produced will not be
particularly stronger than if
the same packs had been booster
drafted. With strong
cooperation, which probably
requires that everyone at the
table be of a high play level,
Mirrodin Rochester draft can
result in five or six of the
eight draft decks being
significantly more powerful than
they would have been from a
booster draft with the same
packs. In the end, the biggest
problems you have to overcome
when moving from Mirrodin
booster draft to Mirrodin
Rochester draft is a combination
of cooperation and deciding when
to select your colors. It’s
harder in Rochester to wait on
your commitment to a color or
colors, but the longer you can
wait, the better. You better be
ready to cooperate with the
players next to you in
Rochester, and you better not
hate-draft, but at the same
time, don’t let the players next
to you bully you out of a color
choice just because you have
already drafted meaningless
cards in another color.
